Since my last ar­ti­cle a few weeks ago re­lat­ing to this TTFA/FI­FA saga, I gen­uine­ly thought things would have got­ten bet­ter. How sil­ly was I? Every day, a dif­fer­ent head­line ap­pears in the me­dia and I have been fol­low­ing the bat­tle in­tense­ly.

This, as I have from day one, felt and still be­lieve that FI­FA is wrong and the stance tak­en by Wal­lace and com­pa­ny is a prin­ci­pled one which I com­plete­ly en­dorse - al­though one or two of my col­leagues have tried to per­suade me oth­er­wise.

I am cer­tain that many of us have found our­selves go­ing down a sim­i­lar road that the de­posed TTFA (T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) ex­ec­u­tive is trav­el­ling on. But, it is nat­ur­al and good prac­tice to stand up for what you be­lieve in. What does not af­fect us per­son­al­ly, we have a lethar­gic ten­den­cy to sit back and watch on.

In­ter­est­ing and en­cour­ag­ing is the fact that per­sons like T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis, who does not ques­tion FI­FA statutes to ap­point a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, are ques­tion­ing their “il­log­i­cal man­ner” and un­rea­son­able be­hav­iour with­out any due process for its heavy-hand­ed im­po­si­tion on the TTFA.

Then, 'Mr Con­sti­tu­tion' him­self, Os­mond Down­er spoke out about FI­FA's lack of prin­ci­ples con­cern­ing nat­ur­al jus­tice. These learned gen­tle­men could have eas­i­ly sat in their cor­ner and not got­ten in­volved. But, they clear­ly know wrong­do­ing when they see it and have spo­ken out. Ul­ti­mate­ly, no one can ac­cuse ei­ther of them of favour­ing the de­posed TTFA.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, up­on my in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the same can't be said for oth­er per­sons who have po­si­tions in var­i­ous re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions. So when a head­line yells out, “Re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions: Ban Wal­lace and Friends, not TTFA”, my ini­tial thought was that Wal­lace had lost his sup­port with­in the foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty. I would al­so ex­pect the nor­mal man in the street, fol­low­ing this im­passe, would be think­ing the same.

But, on check­ing the four re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions - South­ern FA (SFA) East­ern FA (EFA) Cen­tral FA (CFA) and the East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union, it was brought to my at­ten­tion that they nev­er sup­port­ed the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion of Wal­lace and com­pa­ny in the first place. They were all open­ly in favour of oth­er can­di­dates. More­over, when you ex­am­ine each of these as­so­ci­a­tions, they rep­re­sent a sor­ry state of af­fairs for re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tion foot­ball.

The SFA has five reg­is­tered foot­ball teams to par­tic­i­pate in their league and that rep­re­sents the whole of the south zone - much un­like crick­et which is bro­ken down in­to south, south-east and south-west. Then, the EFA has sev­en teams. To lend some per­spec­tive, years ago when I coached Carib FC, there were two di­vi­sions and the first di­vi­sion had 12 teams alone. CFA has 10 teams of which sev­en are op­posed to the pres­i­dent of the CFA, one of his sup­port­ers works for him so I don't know if one can count him in.

Un­doubt­ed­ly, the biggest scan­dal of all is East­ern Coun­ties - they have not had foot­ball there for two years but some­how they still have vot­ing rights. What a dis­as­ter! I un­der­stand they were to have an AGM (an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing) but it hasn't hap­pened. I sup­pose COVID-19 would be a good ex­cuse for them to use.

Imag­ine, these are the re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions call­ing for Wal­lace to be banned. Shame­less. These foot­balling out­casts (or are they mis­fits?) sud­den­ly found a voice once again, see­ing as no­body has heard from them since the elec­tions apart from now to op­pose the de­posed TTFA. Quite frankly, I wish they will all just go back in their re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions and try and im­prove their leagues when­ev­er foot­ball gets go­ing again be­cause they have been fail­ing mis­er­ably.

The East­ern Coun­ties, on the oth­er hand, should per­haps beg the im­posed nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to come and help them so they can iden­ti­fy what a foot­ball looks like.

I re­main con­fi­dent that there are some in this coun­try who can email or pick up the phone and call FI­FA and say that what they are do­ing is dam­ag­ing the im­age of T&T foot­ball. And if you are true to your word and re­al­ly love the beau­ti­ful game, let's all sit around a ta­ble and see how we can solve this ug­ly mess. The crux of the prob­lem is that I don't think FI­FA wants to break this dead­lock. We all know what they want and who they want. But, what they did not ex­pect was this fight and re­sis­tance from the de­posed TTFA. Cred­it to Wal­lace and his team be­cause who in their right frame of mind would take on the mighty FI­FA - of­ten per­ceived as one of the world's most cor­rupt or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Now, why would FI­FA want to solve this dis­pute when they very well have or­ches­trat­ed the heavy-hand­ed im­po­si­tion of this nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to suit their own pur­pose? This is the same FI­FA that has re­cent­ly agreed to bailout the Zim­bab­we Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (ZI­FA) of its US$10 Mil­lion debt which equates to about TT$67.5 Mil­lion. This bailout is in ad­di­tion to the US$1 Mil­lion grant that FI­FA is­sues the as­so­ci­a­tion an­nu­al­ly. The TTFA's debt is rough­ly TT$17 Mil­lion less than the ZI­FA but they send a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee here in T&T. Some­body, please help me with the maths here but I sup­pose it has noth­ing to do with maths, does it? You see, jus­tice must not on­ly be done but seen to be done. There is no jus­tice here.

It will hurt if we get banned by FI­FA and the young­sters will suf­fer - I have heard this ad nau­se­am and it is in­deed in­dis­putable. But, we have an oblig­a­tion to those same young­sters to talk to them and teach them right from wrong; to stand up against in­jus­tice in a cor­rect, law-abid­ing man­ner; to know that in­jus­tices should nev­er be al­lowed to oc­cur.

When we coach young­sters, it is not on­ly to im­prove their foot­ball but to make them bet­ter hu­man be­ings and this is one les­son, as tough as it may be, that they need to learn from and un­der­stand. No mat­ter the out­come, lit­tle T&T stood up to FI­FA to fight against in­jus­tice, hypocrisy and dirty un­der­hand deal­ings.

Ed­i­tor's note: The views ex­pressed in this col­umn are sole­ly those of the writer and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.